Finding More Effective Leadership Style in Quality Management Using AHP Method

Many researchers in the field of the quality evaluated that management of organization has a significant impact on successful implementation of quality management. The leadership approaches of the managers in the organization affect the quality management (QM) process directly. Leadership approaches have been grouped by researchers as transformational, transactional and non-transactional. According to the researchers’ study the approach of transformational leadership (TL) has a positive impact on successful QM practices. The purpose of this paper is to examine which of the behavioral component of the TL approach detailed in the Bass and Avolio’s Full Range Model of Leadership is important in the development of the quality management system (QMS). In the research, an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method was implemented based on the opinions a number of quality managers and quality experts from the production and service sectors in Turkey. As a result, the “idealized influence” behavioral component has higher importance in QMS.